Veronica Ryan, Along a Spectrum, 2021. Installation view, Spike Island, Bristol. Courtesy of Alison Jacques. Photo Lisa Whiting.
Veronica Ryan, Along a Spectrum, 2021. Installation view, Spike Island, Bristol. Commissioned by Spike Island, Bristol and supported by Freelands Foundation. Courtesy of Spike Island, Bristol and Alison Jacques. Photo Max MacClure
Coming Soon
01 Apr - 14 Jun 2026
Gallery 1
| Monday | Closed |
| Tuesday | 11am–6pm |
| Wednesday | 11am–6pm |
| Thursday | 11am–9pm |
| Friday | 11am–6pm |
| Saturday | 11am–6pm |
| Sunday | 11am–6pm |
Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our exhibitions as accessible as possible for every visitor. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
For complete access information about the gallery, please visit here.
Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations, is one of the most extensive presentations to date of the acclaimed Freelands Award and Turner Prize winning artist, Veronica Ryan, OBE, RA (b. 1956, Plymouth, Montserrat).
Encompassing more than 100 works, and spanning four decades, the exhibition reflects the full spectrum of Ryan’s practice, showcasing her multifaceted work across sculpture, textiles and works on paper and illuminating a distinctive, highly evocative, visual language. Significantly, the exhibition features recently rediscovered works from the 1980s – large-scale sculptures made from plaster and beaten lead, as well as vivid drawings – which reveal an enduring deep interest in psychology, memory and personal stories, while also connecting to wider themes around the environment, history, trauma and recovery.
Ryan is known for her long-standing interest in the intricate structures and patterns of the natural world. In her work, seeds and pods hold significant but ambiguous meaning as protective vessels for new life, as well as enclosed containers associated with confinement or evolution. Ryan is also interested in exploring the invisible aspects of human experience; the unseen forces that shape the inner workings of the mind. Her work is conceptually and texturally rich as well as culturally and materially diverse. She employs a range of traditional materials such as plaster, bronze and marble in her work – drawing on skills and techniques gleaned in her academic training in the 1970s and ‘80s at London’s Slade School of Fine Art amongst other institutions – alongside crafts such as crochet and quilting – part of an intergenerational artistic legacy handed down from her mother.
Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations offers audiences a unique opportunity to engage with the full spectrum of Ryan’s work and trace the development of a groundbreaking practice that defies any singular or linear narrative.
Veronica Ryan: Multiple Conversations has been principally and generously supported by The Colwinston Charitable Trust.
Veronica Ryan (b.1956, Plymouth, Montserrat) studied at St. Albans College of Art and Design, Bath Academy of Art in Corsham Court, The Slade School of Art at University College, London, and The School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. Over her forty-year career, she has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and residencies within the U.K., the U.S., and abroad. Her first one-person exhibition was at Arnolfini, Bristol in 1987. Other important one-person shows have been presented at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (1988), Camden Arts Centre, London (1995), Aldrich Museum, Connecticut (1996), Salena Gallery, Brooklyn (2005), Tate St Ives (2000, 2005 and 2017), The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh (2011), The Art House, Wakefield, (2017) and Spike Island, Bristol (2021). Ryan’s exhibition Unruly Objects was presented at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St Louis and Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio (2025-26). Her work is in many private and public collections such as the Tate, the Brooklyn Museum, the Arts Council Collection, Contemporary Art Society, Sainsbury’s Collection, the Hepworth Wakefield, and the Weltkunst Collection at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Ryan currently lives and works both in New York and in the U.K.
Principal supporter:
The Colwinston Charitable Trust 30th Anniversary Fund
With support from:
Alison Jacques
Paula Cooper Gallery
Henry Moore Foundation
